Is Korea Really That Safe? I Saw Packages. My Friend Saw Thieves.

When my friend Timmy was staying at my place in Korea, something in the hallway caught his eye.

I live in an officetel, a type of apartment building that's common in Korea. There are several apartments on each floor, all connected by a long hallway.

When you walk down the hallway, you often see packages sitting outside people's doors.

To me, it's nothing unusual.

But one day, Timmy and I were coming home, and there were a lot more packages than usual outside the apartment next door.

It wasn't just one or two boxes. There were big boxes, small boxes, and several of them were piled up next to the door.

Timmy stopped for a second.

"Are those all packages?"

"Yeah."

He looked at the boxes again.

"But you just leave them there? What if someone steals them?"

I had to think about it for a second.

I'd never really thought about how to explain it. To me, packages just get delivered to your door. That's how it works.

So why don't people take them?

In Korea, you can order something online even when you're not home. The delivery driver leaves the package at your door, and you get a notification on your phone. When you get home, you just bring it inside.

So when I saw all those packages outside my neighbor's door, I didn't think much of it. I just assumed whoever lived there wasn't home yet.

But that wasn't what Timmy was wondering about.

He wanted to know why nobody would take them.

And when I thought about it, he had a point.

There was no lock on those boxes. If someone really wanted to take one, they could just pick it up and walk away.

Still, buildings like mine often have a shared entrance, and some have security cameras in the hallways too. If someone took somebody else's package, they might be caught on camera.

That doesn't mean package theft never happens in Korea. It does.

I just don't normally look at a package sitting outside someone's door and immediately think, Someone might steal that.

Most people around me seem to think the same way.

Timmy didn't see it that way

I looked at the pile of boxes outside my neighbor's door and thought,

"They ordered a lot of stuff."

Timmy looked at the exact same boxes and thought,

"Nobody's going to steal those?"

I explained why I wasn't worried about the packages, but he still seemed surprised.

Before we went inside, he looked back at the packages one more time.

I entered the door code and opened the door.

"Don't worry. They're not your packages."

Timmy laughed.

Then we went inside.